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Vaughn Palmer: Christy Clark sticks to a script that has a life of its own

Lt-Gov. Judith Guichon inspects the guard of honour before opening the first session of the 40th Parliament of British Columbia and reads the speech from the throne today in the legislature.

Photograph by: CHAD HIPOLITO
, THE CANADIAN PRESS

VICTORIA — With no ability to lead her B.C. Liberal government from the floor of the legislature on throne speech day, Premier Christy Clark went with what worked during the election campaign.

A construction site. Workers as the backdrop. Cue the reminder that the project, a home for seniors, would not have been possible without the economic growth that underwrites public funding for government programs.

She even donned a hard hat, albeit not the custom-tailored one she sported in so many photo ops in leading the Liberals to a fourth term.

That one ought to be bronzed and donated to the political hall of fame, along with a video of the Adrian Dix-as-weather-vane advertisement, given the role both played in the iconography of Campaign 2013.

Turning to the content of the day, Clark went with a campaign theme there as well.

The priorities reflected in Wednesday’s throne speech and Thursday’s budget update are those set out in the Liberal election platform: controlling spending, four years of balanced budgets, a five-year freeze on personal tax rates and the carbon tax, and an updated version of the vaunted jobs plan, now nearing its second anniversary.

Though much-mocked because of debatable results in the employment numbers, the jobs plan remains the centrepiece of the government agenda.

The creation of a stand-alone ministry to develop a liquefied natural gas industry, the push for economic deals with First Nations, the promise of tenure reform in the Interior forests, the throne speech promise of a 10-year skills training plan — all relate to the determination to produce private sector jobs and growth.

In short, the premier is nothing if not focused and the focus is very much on the contents of that election platform.

She referred back to it again in the course of a scrum with reporters about the government decision to intervene directly in contract negotiations in the K-12 education sector.

Clark got off a couple of shots at the teachers’ union, which did everything it could to defeat her in the election. Were the teachers’ bargaining reps really proposing to book off the entire summer? “We want to negotiate in the summer and we’re certainly ready to do that.”

As for the union’s complaint about the government’s unwarranted intrusion, Clark noted how in the past, the BCTF has demanded face-to-face talks with the province as the ultimate authority for funding the school system.

Then the reference back to the platform: “Our government was elected with a mandate to pursue 10 years of labour peace in schools and so that is what we are doing without delay.”

Yes, there it was on page 44 of the platform, a commitment that if the Liberals were re-elected, they would immediately begin discussions “to achieve a 10-year agreement with the B.C. Teachers’ Federation.”

One can expect variations on that answer from the Liberals on any number of issues in the days and weeks ahead.

Health regions putting the squeeze on services and boosting fees? The election budget, like the election platform, promised to hold spending growth in that sector to about half the rate of past years.

New sources of funding for buses and transit in Metro Vancouver? Not until approved by referendum, to be held at the same time as next year’s civic election.

And so on.

Having confounded so many observers with her successful campaign for another term, Clark understandably relies on the election platform as a touchstone for her mandate from the election.

She’s right in thinking that people voted for the Liberal pledge to boost the economy and manage provincial finances. But the platform, released April 15, ran to almost 100 pages. I have to think that many of those who voted Liberal did so without familiarizing themselves with the minutiae of the party position on, say, the tree fruit industry (pg. 24) or brew pubs (pg. 31).

Plus there are all those things that were ignored or not contemplated in the platform, and that nevertheless have to be faced in the real world unfolding after the election.

On the same day as the throne speech touted the goals of holding the line on spending and someday reducing the debt, the Terrace Standard newspaper was reporting a huge cost overrun on BC Hydro’s Northwest Transmission line.

Originally priced at $404 million, Hydro is now pegging the cost at $736 million, an 82-per-cent overrun. This at a time when the giant utility is supposed to be holding the line on rate increases even as it racks up billions in debt and defers additional billions in spending to a burgeoning number of special accounts.

One of the explanations for the overrun was particularly unflattering to the B.C. Liberals. Apart from the difficult terrain and Hydro’s lack of recent familiarity with such a project, the company had to pay a premium to attract the necessary workforce.

“We’ve had to bring in people from all over,” BC Hydro vice-president Bruce Barrett told the Terrace Standard, blaming a shortage of skilled workers in the region.

The same skill shortage that the Liberals have been warned about for a number of years and are only just now scrambling to address.

A precise mandate is a good starting point for a new government. But events have a way of nibbling away at even the surest of them.

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